Well, it finally happened. After over 4 years since its initial announcement, Bayonetta 3 officially got a big re-reveal at today’s Nintendo Direct. The main character herself got a makeover, as has become tradition for the series now it seems, but also looked somewhat different in a lot of regards. It’s hard to parse with what little we’ve been shown so far, but the combat seems different alongside big monsters battling out in ways that we haven’t seen before. We’ll no doubt find out more as time goes on, but the game’s Director has a message for fans on what they are aiming for.
On the official PlatinumGames website, Director Yusuke Miyata had a few things to say. It’s his first foray into the franchise, and he mentions speaking in-depth with Hideki Kamiya, the franchise Creator as well as Director of the first game, about what systems to be put in place. He acknowledges that he knows players want fast-paced action and that will be the key to enjoyability for many fans and wants to keep as much of that element intact as possible.
“I’m also being extremely discerning about the action which is essential to the Bayonetta series. Kamiya-san has almost literally talked my ear off about “action connected directly to the brain.” Basically, that’s the type of satisfying action gameplay that comes from being able to control the character exactly how you want, and the genes of that action have been properly passed down to this game too. From the position of both developer and fan, we’re all working on Bayonetta 3 keeping these 2 bewitching aspects of the series in mind, with the goal of surpassing all expectations.”
One thing new talked briefly about is the new summoning mechanic that we got glimpses of in the reveal trailer. Unlike previous games, it seems Bayonetta will not simply summon her Infernal Demons for a single attack and then have them vanish. Now we will have something called Demon Slave, a new summoning mechanic that will allow you to directly control those demons. It also seems that it could have more uses that we will see later.
“We sprinkled a lot of new elements throughout the frenetic pacing. I’d like to talk a bit about one of those, a new featured mechanic that lets you control Infernal Demons, called “Demon Slave.”
“Unlike the Climax Summons of previous games that automatically defeated enemies and returned to Inferno, this mechanic lets players control demons during gameplay and unleash a host of intuitive actions. Each demon’s abilities vary and the kinds of abilities that are advantageous in a certain situation can change at any time. Just how many are there? What else can you do? Well, there’s a lot more I’d like to tell you, but I have to stop here for now. However, there’s a lot of info hidden in the trailer that I didn’t go into here, so please consider watching it again until the next announcement.”
Bayonetta 3 is now slated to release sometime in 2022 exclusively on the Nintendo Switch.
